September 30, 2010: Letter from Quarry Committee Chairs

Just as the September 28, 2010 final hearing on the Quarry’s application for their Operating Permit and Amended Reclamation Plan commenced, the Coalition reached an agreement with the Quarry. The Board of Supervisors approved the permits, which include important conditions for the benefit of our community.

For months, Coalition leadership has been meeting with County staff to ensure that the concerns of our community would be adequately addressed. We have been hard at work pushing for changes that would reduce hours of operation and provide other mitigations that would reduce the impacts of quarry operations. In the end, were able to negotiate conditions that convinced us that acceptance of these more stringent conditions would be better than pursuing further litigation that might take years to conclude and, most likely, result in neighbors having to forgo the offered mitigations in the meantime.

Among the most important conditions, of which there are many, are:

Reduced operating hours, including barging hours

Repaving of Pt. San Pedro Road from McNears Beach Park to San Rafael High School with open-graded asphalt to reduce road noise

Tarping of trucks to contain and reduce dust along Pt. San Pedro Road

Improved vacuum sweeper to clean the road

Enclosure of noisy quarry operations

Improvements in blasting procedures to reduce blasting impact on neighbors and nearby structures

Air Quality Testing

Marsh Restoration on the quarry property

Ongoing dialogue between the quarry and our community to go forward as neighbors

We want to sincerely thank you for your years of support and participation. To those of you that attended Coalition and County meetings, wrote letters to the Board of Supervisors, wrote letters to the editor, emailed us with you comments and suggestions, called neighbors to encourage attendance at meetings, etc., all of your efforts are gratefully acknowledged. It truly takes a community to effect meaningful change!

It is heartwarming to know that members of the community believe we made the correct choices. That was our experience following the hearing yesterday, when our neighbors approached us to embrace and thank us for our joint efforts — and emails continue to come in expressing appreciation.